


silt and hassocks

by CampionSayn



Series: February Prompts 2020 [27]
Category: Wolverine And The X-Men (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst with a sort-of Happy Ending, Gen, What-If, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-01
Updated: 2020-03-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 11:00:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22968895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CampionSayn/pseuds/CampionSayn
Summary: “Take me back, please.”
Relationships: Toad & Rogue
Series: February Prompts 2020 [27]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1621750
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	silt and hassocks

He had expected rage or despair at the sight of them, seeing him for the first time in what Rogue said was over seventeen months.  
  
But, much like the numbness that had overtaken him the third time he’d tried to escape the MRD, freedom in sight and bounding over the dry, wet, weathered grass and weeds; all feelings just poured out of him.   
  
Perhaps he felt a bit of pity, the way Pietro looked at him and the body of Mystique at his feet battered half to death, but merely unconscious because he still retained some level of humanity in spite of himself and all things.   
  


* * *

  
  
“Better eat, Toad,” Rogue stated, though with hesitation as she hovered in the shadow of the hallway and the opening of the room he’d been given for the sake of breathing space and to delay the onset of panic; he’d spent too much time alone and in constant danger, there was too much risk of all of his defenses springing up at too much noise or overcrowding, “You don’t have to eat all of it, but I know they weren’t feeding you proper in that place.”   
  
She doesn’t say, _Among other things_ , though he knows she wants to and has to bite her tongue to keep it in.   
  
He appreciated it despite being so still in the dark where he could see without light burning his eyes, and picked up the spoon and the soup in hands he knew she flinched at, but still made the effort not to show those horrible _things_ . Guilt. Disgust. Fear.   
  
It could have been anyone, and she was glad it wasn’t _her_ , but felt sick knowing it was him.   
  


* * *

  
  
They had bullied, threatened, joked and even attempted to leave him to rot, to forget about him. To make it readily apparent that he needed them far more than they needed him   
  
Mortimer remembered this often and readily whenever he snuck younger, newer, more torn down mutants from inside the detention center the guards and Moss never bothered to transfer him from. The Colonel seemed to keen to figure out why he never spoke anymore and never got beyond a hedge of Common Reed and Sweet Vernal Grass,   
  
If the prejudiced sonofabitch bothered using his eyes, he would have seen the scrapes from Toad’s sharp nails and strong legs in the dirt from his thrashing about on the ground where they’d found him, perhaps thinking the guards got him with a stunner or a shot of sedative darts that sprung up along the fenceline.   
  
But the convenient thing about being forgotten was that nobody could acknowledge his tears as weakness or comment on them when they stopped coming during the pain of interrogations that he couldn’t answer or the walking away from other mutants he’d managed to free without being seen going forward or back to his cell.   
  
And then one day when he passed a TV the guards kept in their offices to makes sports bets on and it changed to breaking news showing the Brotherhood--including Toad-not-Toad, that scheming bitch who’d done something to their youngest member that kept him locked up and herself holding his hand to act competent in combat--and all those little conveniences made less of a difference than his feeling, ‘Oh, so I’m not real.’   
  
It seemed an awful lot of trouble for Magneto, who held Mystique’s leash much like he held Pietro’s, to have the old bitch put Toad of all Brotherhood members out of sight and out of mind, except for in a way where she was wearing his face and being useful for…   
  
Well, it didn’t matter. He’d made up his mind about that after he’d seen the news and sat in his cell without eating for a week and only drinking water every other day.   
  


* * *

  
  
The waiting and the planning paid off half a year later when Rogue found herself, and with the team she’d abandoned the Brotherhood for, in the cells right across from him.   
  
_‘I need you to slit my throat.’_   
  
Fuck, that had been a morbid way of putting it, but it was the best he could manage as he couldn’t speak and didn’t know sign and could only make the cutting motion like some kind of serial killer.   
  
What a surprise it had been when Rogue thought he wanted to check out early after all the torture and mind games; stomping her foot and banging the bars and repeating there was no fucking way they were doing that, “Why would you even ask--?”   
  
Frost had been the one to cut her off from going into a fit of conscience like a martyr, bless her.   
  
“There’s something in your neck? Is that why you can’t leave?”   
  
He nodded, holding back his matted and too long hair to show off the gnarled, grotesque scars from some device he was pretty sure Mystique had placed under his skin before dropping his stupid ass into the MRD detention center parking lot like some dog she’d run off the road and was returning to the owner while not wanting to take responsibility.   
  


* * *

  
  
The electricity from whatever Mystique had stuck in him hadn’t completely destroyed his voice, but it was so much less than it had been before betrayal and his body being at the mercy of agony and constantly being at riddled with fever, dehydration and pneumonia.   
  
The first time he tried to use it on the way to the X-Men base of operations, he’d scared himself with how much he sounded like some eighty year old who smoked five packs a day.   
  
“Do you suppose they noticed at all?”   
  
It hurt. He wouldn’t pretend it didn’t hurt, but he also didn’t care so much, so he didn’t say much of anything after that.   
  
Rogue couldn’t give him an answer, but she could give him a ride and a hand.   
  


* * *

  
  
They hadn’t noticed at all. There were no two ways about it.   
  
They had believed the lie dressed up in his skin and mannerisms made to seem like growing up to be a warrior right up and until Rogue stepped aside at the gate to let them see the truth of the matter and Mortimer spat bloodstained slime at the doppelganger amongst Magneto’s little toy soldiers; his son at the head and almost running to defend who he thought was his teammate before their shaped changed.   
  
Toad allowed the woman a moment to yank off the slime--it wasn’t strong anymore, dried too easily and the blood made it come away all the easier--before Rogue tapped her on the shoulder and let Mortimer finish the moment.   
  
The contrast was probably what put them into shock, when he looked back on it much later.   
  
He looked so very faded, even while he’d gotten a bit taller, not a lick of fat or softness left on him, skin stretched over his sharper edges and scale patches more like flint skin bruised over dried blood.   
  
Not that it mattered, he did what he had to and what was needed.   
  
“Take me back, please.”   
  
He had asked Rogue, not looking at anyone, blinking at the white spots in his sight from pulling off a trick like that; giving proof had been harder than he’d thought.   
  
She had nodded, and walked with him back to the jet, shoulder brushing his without danger.   
  
Nobody was very happy about it, but nobody that remained on Genosha stopped them.   
  
The hollow feeling wasn’t filled, as Mortimer had hoped, but it didn’t stretch and he could give it time.


End file.
